Kenilworth Lodge #29 AF&AMFreemasonry, Our guide for living

There is a myriad of books expounding the history of Freemasonry
authored by historians, would be historians and others who claim
knowledge of the Masonic craft that they really don’t possess.
The genuine historians are those who we need to take notice of,
others we can read with tongue in cheek, which is probably how
they wrote, and the rest we can read for amusement. In either
event, they will all tell us how, when and where Freemasonry
originated, how it has evolved over the years, and where it is
headed, even although their theories vary from book to book.

It all started in Mesopotamia at the building of the tower of
Babel, or, it started in Egypt with the building of the
pyramids, or, Jesus was the first Freemason. It began at the
building of KST, or, it had its beginnings in the Goose and
Gridiron pub in London, or, it was born from the stonemason’s
guild in York, hence York rite Masonry. It was originated by the
Knights Templar, or, the first Freemasons were operative
stonemasons who specialized in working with a particular type of
stone called freestone, I,e, freestone masons. The term
Freemason by the way, did have its origins in England. There is
an origin there for every student of the Masonic art, take your
pick and run with it. But don’t be surprised if you run up
against a stone wall. To seek the early beginnings of
speculative Freemasonry before the fifteenth or sixteenth
century will no doubt prove to be fruitless.

Theorists and would be historians tend to get confused between
practical operative masonry and speculative Freemasonry, because
operative stonemasons had lodges that appears to suggest that
they must have been Freemasons. Lodges are centuries older than
Freemasonry. A lodge was a temporary structure on the building
site where the stone cutters did their work and the apprentices
learned their craft. The lodges were supplied to protect the
workmen from inclement weather so that they could continue to
work even when it was cold and wet. Permanent lodges in some of
the towns were made availableto be used not only as a meeting place for the local
operative masons, but as a temporary residence for travelling or
journeyman masons.

Myths and legends, although intriguing in themselves, tend to
engender leaps of faith that can be, and usually are,
misleading. The origins of the craft are hidden in the mists of
time and to find them one has to look only at the facts, the
written records, evidence which can be seen as infallible as it
can be. Supposition and imaginative concoctions have to be
discarded as temptations to investigate and research the wrong
paths, usually ending up against the afore mentioned stone wall.

Research into the history of the craft is not just interesting,
it’s intriguing, rewarding, fulfilling. We are not historians,
we have neither the time or the wherewithal to make it a full
time occupation, we are obliged to depend on the people who
have. So we have to read everything we can get our hands on,
written by whoever. We must analyze everything and question
everything we read, take nothing for granted, hang on to the
good stuff and discard the rubbish, separate the wheat from the
chaff so to speak, and finally draw our own conclusions. Those
conclusions may not be a perfect history of the craft, but they
will be understandable and believable, and they will provide us
with a better knowledge of Freemasonry, its import, its
symbolism, its intent, and it will assist in making us better
Masons and thereforebetter human beings.